Last week my Chicago Area Runner’s Association newsletter began by saying “The pain train is leaving the station soon…are you willing to jump on it? ALL ABOARD PEOPLE!!” Well they were not lying. I am very sore sitting here writing this post. I missed my Wednesday run due to work; I had training in another state and spent just as much time in a vehicle as I did actually working that day. I was able to complete my other scheduled runs. Here is the recap of my week:

My 20-miler on Saturday evening did not go as planned, or even close to planned for that matter. I described my run on social media this way – a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad run! I set out to run consistent eight minute splits to finish around 2:40:00. I was doing well with my pace and was plus or minus a few seconds of eight minutes through the first 14 miles. Then the wheels fell off the bus. My splits quickly increased to over nine minutes, with two of the miles at ten minutes (ahh!). I completed the first half in 1:19:16 and the back half in 1:29:22.

It should be worth noting that the heat (humidity) was nearly unbearable. I consumed over 75 ounces of water during my run, and lost a total of 5 lbs. of water weight. Not being properly hydrated may have played a role with my poor performance, but I have no one to blame for that but me. My wife also found this interesting article.

Being consistent is something I’ve been working really hard on and have improved significantly at the shorter distances, including my half marathon. I’m hoping to continue improving over the longer distances. It’s now time to move on to next week.

What to expect next week?

Training was suppose to hit 70 miles this week, but as I mentioned a few weeks back I have had to do some long run tweaking in order to accommodate a race at the end of the month. Because of these changes, I should be around 63 miles barring any setbacks or cancellations.

Do you have tip on running consistent splits? If so, I would love for you to leave a comment!